


Twelve Years and a Receipt

by Mysteriousapplejuice



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Trans Keith (Voltron), a lot of discussion of the effects of the Galra empire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:53:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9092170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysteriousapplejuice/pseuds/Mysteriousapplejuice
Summary: The Galra empire doesn't have many benefits, but long-term service leave for twelve years after two hundred and fifty years of service isn't bad, right? 
But Thace's holiday becomes a lot more exhausting when he discovers returning things are lot more difficult when it doesn't want to cooperate.





	1. New places, new faces, new problems.

When a subordinate asked what he was going to do with his long-service leave, Thace was genuinely stumped. 

It was a young recruit, barely fifty years old and face still covered in baby soft fur. But his body was already riddled with pale violet scars, a result of training for the military for two years. He hadn’t even been to a battle yet and he already held himself like a Galra resigned for death. 

So Thace told him what he wanted to hear, that he was going to visit his mother, an elder excused from service and live in his home colony for a couple months before exploring little-known planets to learn skills from the far reaches of the universe. 

The young recruit ears pricked up and some fight returned to his eyes, Thace just hoped that his performance improved otherwise the Druids would beat that fight out of his eyes before he could blink. 

“Vice commander?” A low voice snapped him out of his musings.   
“Soldier.” Thace greeted. 

He used to try and remember their names, faces or numbers, but two hundred and fifty years is a long time to be in the military and some soldiers lasted seconds. They all blended together and only a few faces truly stuck to Thace’s memory, and those all belonged to some optimistic streak Thace had left behind two hundred and twenty five years ago. 

“Your ship is ready, sir. Your bags have been stored and a model-3001 GCB has been installed for assistance and housekeeping.”   
“Thank you soldier.” Thace sighed. “Vrepit sa.”   
“Vrepit sa!” The soldier saluted and marched away.   
Thace reckoned he’d either last another ten years on the battlefield or another twenty in service before he became disillusioned with the empire. 

A few more soldiers stopped him on the way to the ship, either offering congratulations, thinly veiled expressions of envy or the occasional disdain from the truly devout who believed that a Galra should be fighting from the second they can carry a blaster to the second their weapon is turned against them. 

The ship itself was a sleek chrome model decommissioned ten years ago over a political dispute, one commander refused to use them because they believed that the increased stealth capabilities was a show of weakness, and that any mission could be completed with brute force. The rest of the commanders bristled at his challenge and all the ships were stored or used for extra parts. 

The outside of the ship had been freshly painted and polished until it gleamed, and the tinted glass had been cleaned so Thace could look at his tired appearance of a three hundred year old going on six hundred. Luckily the door activation panel was not too difficult to find, so he didn’t have to stare at his reflection any longer. With a hiss, the door slid open and a staircase descended. Thace frowned, it was a little slow for his liking so he made a mental note to change the speed when he fixed the rest of the ship. 

When Thace entered the ship he was pleasantly surprised, it was not unlike the Galra empire to rush plans and only make the appearance acceptable, but the interior seemed cleaned and well-cared for. Furthermore the original schematics described the ship as a transport for soldiers, so it was meant to be a giant empty space with supplies strapped to the walls. But someone had carefully gone through and constructed walls to sections off rooms and taken down the webbing from the walls. 

Immediately to the right of the door was the GCB charging station, where the little robot whirred awake and let out a welcoming beep at Thace’s presence. It had a spherical head on which two mock Galra ears rotated on, and a screen displaying a neon green happy face. 

It would do. 

Unfortunately by activating the GCB, it insisted on a tour, and by the end Thace was reluctantly impressed. The ship that could’ve transported platoons of soldiers had been converted into a spacious vacation ship consisting of a library, training room, weapons stock, bathroom, kitchen, a few bedrooms and an impressive piloting room. The feeling of unease grew when every room was clean and the ship was fully stocked with food, water, fuel and medical supplies. 

Opening the controls Thace felt a new wave of guilt, the diagnostic logs showed that the ship had been worked on for at least eight days, and the engine had been checked hourly. The sheer amount of effort that the soldiers put into his safety and comfort when Thace had been actively ignoring them was disturbing; perhaps his disinterest had been mistaken for kindness or sympathy? 

Starting the engine triggered the GCB to activate the empire farewell message. Beeping quietly it rolled up to the pilot chair and projected a hologram of Commander Sendak. It was clearly scripted and Sendak was definitely one of the devout, so the only joy Thace took from the message was Sendak’s discomfort. 

“Thank you soldier for your devoted service to the empire for two hundred and fifty years, as a reward for your time you have been given twelve years optional long service leave. If you have chosen to take the leave, you are expected to come back more experienced and ready for the expansion of the empire. Vrepit sa.” 

The frowning Sendak hologram disappeared and the GCB secured itself to the wall in preparation for take-off. 

The ship was steady and smooth, a marvel of engineering that could’ve saved so many lives if the commanders hadn’t been so bull-headed. Behind Thace his ex-warship let out a single violet flare in farewell, but all Thace could think about was that twelve years was nowhere near long enough to quell the bitterness he held for the empire. 

 

A few galaxies over and in the shadow of an abandoned moon, Thace ordered the GCB to fetch him a bottle of water and as the GCB turned its back, Thace quickly disabled it by ripping out its back panel and power pack. It let out a single screech of betrayal before dropping to the ground. After that Thace set to work. 

It wasn’t easy to debug an AI, but with the right programs it was possible. Thace spent the better half of a day (or at least the hours of one) removing every system that reported his actions back to the empire or spewed propaganda at him periodically. The final touch was the instalment of a new personality, one saved from a memory core in his youth that consisted of friendly insults and a bleeding heart that had caused their end. The GCB’s system absorbed the memory core and quickly started changing its coding scripts to respond to the name Miraf, but Thace stopped it and changed it to GCB Miraf. Whilst this GCB may have the memories and personalities of her, it couldn’t replace his older sister. 

When the process was complete GCB Miraf lit a small flame in his face threateningly before helping him search and destroy every other bug, tracking device or propaganda displayer within the ship. Only then did Thace relax and start planning how to spend twelve years. 

 

Maybe it was because he had mentioned it to the soldier, or perhaps it was the Miraf traits the GCB now displayed, but Thace felt a deep longing to return to his colony.   
Solonia was originally a sub-colony of another Galran colony, a storage hub set up on a neighbouring dwarf planet of a trading planet called Maemondai. Maemondai was a little too close to the sun of the solar system to allow for complex organisms, and was mostly barren rock. But it’s position in the system and flat topography made it a very wealthy hub with hundreds of successful merchant families living on its surface. 

The solar flare from the system’s star was unexpected, and in the seven hours of radio silence from all the destroyed equipment the vast majority of the residents died from radiation. Maemondai was considered too high of a risk for permanent occupation, so the surviving residents and resources were moved to Solonia. 

For the first few decades Solonia faced a crisis, the sudden influx of sickly refugees from Maemondai drained the planet’s resources quickly, and food shortages were common as only one half of the planet faced the sun and had fertile land. 

But as time passed and the efforts of the surviving merchants endured, Solonia became a renowned trading colony to replace Maemondai. Furthermore the ridiculous prices placed on land for those without ‘citizen rates’ to try and reduce overcrowding, convinced people that the planet was actually incredibly beautiful and valuable and many rich retirees moved to the sunny side of Solonia. 

When Thace was born only five years after Miraf, Solonia was a thriving trading colony and was home to old masters of hundreds trades. 

But by the time Thace was forty-five their population had finally grown enough that they were deemed acceptable for military conscription. Thace’s father was a mercenary that had never returned from a contract guarding a Balmera, so he and Miraf were quickly chosen despite just being on the cusp of adulthood. 

Junex had protested to having her children be conscripted so young. But she was threatened with conscription as well, despite her almost being an elder and a one of the key healers of the colony. So Miraf and Thace had applied to stop threats against their mother and to stop waiting to be forced into military service. 

It had seemed like a good decision at the time, but Thace had never regretted anything as much when he had to call Junex five months later to ask how she wanted Miraf’s remains. The only thing worse was seeing her eyes widen in horror when he had to recommend cremation or a closed casket. 

It had been at least one hundred years since he had last spoken to his mother. 

“GCB Miraf?” Thace called. “Should I go see my mother?” 

GCB Miraf flashed a green smiley face on her display and secured herself to the co-pilot chair. 

“You mean right now? I don’t know how my mother would react…” 

GCB Miraf displayed an angry red face. 

“Fine!” Thace groaned. “But we’re going to fly manually from Earlin’s orbit.” 

The two-day flight from Earlin was increased to three with Thace pausing the flight to work off nervous energy in the training room every few hours. He had no idea what he was supposed to say to his mother when he saw her, or even if she was still living in their old home. Thace knew he should call ahead, but calling ahead would mean committing which was something Thace was still trying to avoid. 

Eventually GCB Miraf grew tired of Thace’s dodging and when he awoke in the morning the ship was drifting in the shallow orbit of Solonia. After blocking GCB Miraf from piloting the ship again, Thace swallowed the bitter pill and headed to the equator of the planet. 

Before Thace and Miraf had been conscripted the sunset region had been as vibrant as the light that shone on the land, each house painted in a different rare pigment to attract tourists to the market stalls set up in front of each home. Every twelve hours the belltower would resound through the region, and within seconds the first merchant would belt out a cry proclaiming their goods, or the chaos of the markets would die away as stalls were packed away and profit was counted. 

Thace had many fond memories of worn explorers admiring his mother’s wares, from the tonics that promised to disinfect wounds with a single drop, the creams that could heal burns within in a day and a bandage that could fade scars ‘better than any Altean healing pod’. The reference to the miraculous technology of the long-dead race always gained them a laugh and the promise of a purchase. Even the biggest sceptics were won over when Junex assured them each product was custom made and adjusted for the species that purchased it. Occasionally this meant that the effectiveness of the medicine was reduced, but the majority of the time it performed as promised. 

But now the sunset region was greyed and dusty, it was meant to be peak market times, but only a few vendors sat at empty stalls staring at deserted streets. GCB Miraf beeped sadly as they turned onto the street that held Thace’s childhood home. The windows of Mx. Kahner’s house were smashed in, and the yellow paint they had zealously applied once a week was faded and peeling away. Each house was in similar states of disrepair, and the carefully pruned Jacaranda willows that were once the pride of the neighbourhood were broken sticks with brown flowers and exposed roots. Thace had to lift GCB Miraf over the discarded metal scraps outside his childhood home. 

The house was as worn as the street, long cracks reached from the foundations to the roof, and the hand painted tiles that had enticed airborne tourists to visit below lay in chunks and dust next to the fence. The deep violet paint had aged better than some of the other houses, but it had a bubbled texture and some portions had completely torn away. So involved in absorbing the destruction, Thace almost missed the small carefully tended to herb patch in the front yard and the shocked lilac face staring at him through the window. 

“Thace?” Junex’s voice wavered as she lent through the window, one wrinkled hand gripping the shears at her waist.   
“Hello mother.” Thace greeted, and to his irritation he felt his ears flatten in concern.   
A wry smile graced Junex’s aged face as she observed her son’s inability to control his ears, a trait that had carried on from his childhood. Her grip on her shears loosened and she opened the door.   
“What? I don’t get a hug?” She smiled. 

Thace had forgotten his mother’s stubbornness, but he was reminded the following morning when she insisted on cooking him a full breakfast with her limited supplies. 

It was this stubbornness that had kept Junex alive for the past century. 

Despite the majority of the population being conscripted, the colony of Solonia had fought on. The children had made themselves look as youthful and small for as long as possible to avoid conscription, and the elders worked full time even on days of mourning. But the ones who had survived in Solonia for so long were aged masters, and their skills became desirable. 

Mx. Kahner was taken to a mining colony to smelt their infamous swords from slave labour metal, Elrok resisted commands to move to the Tertian colony to built robots for the empire and disappeared one night, and for Junex’s superior healing skill she was taking to the gladiator rings to work with the druids in enhancing and healing prisoners. 

The years of seeing children become gladiators and prisoners become monsters weighed heavily on Junex. Her entire body hunched under the weight of her memories, and the skin dragged her eye bags down to edges of her lips until it hurt her to smile. The weariness she carried with her had amassed over the years until the druids let her go, declaring her to be too old for service and too weak to be revitalised with druid magic. When she returned to her home her neighbours were gone, her house was ransacked and her colony was dying. The once thriving Solonia did not go out with a bang like its predecessor Maemondai, but with a slow withering death as every resource and youth was removed from its land. 

But Junex was determined to stay, but equally determined not to let her son suffer with her. Eventually they came to a compromise, Thace would stay for a month repairing the house and preparing medicine and food. Thace had hoped that age and exhaustion would’ve weakened his mother’s will, but he was very wrong. And on the morning thirty days after he had arrived, Thace was thrown to the curb with an amused GCB Miraf.   
“And don’t come back until you bring me grandchildren!” Junex yelled and slammed the door. 

With a sigh Thace picked himelf up, helped GCB Miraf over the metal wreckage and waved goodbye to his mother before heading back to his ship. 

He still had twelve years to explore little-known planets and learn skills from the far reaches of the universe.

 

Thace had stumbled across the transmission completely by accident, it was a primitive radio signal that was filled extensively with information about a species. It was so bizarre Thace was momentarily thrown and wondered if he had missed a bug that was now being used to play a prank on him, but then it clicked. The signal was from a solitary planet, that was attempting to reach another species by bombarding it with information about themselves. It was a confident tactic, and Thace was intrigued. 

Before he realised it Thace had decoded the basics of their language and culture, and had set his ship to the coordinates of a tiny planet called Earth. 

He had used the cloaking abilities of the ship to come closer to the planet, and was delighted to find that their technology had rapidly advanced including a giant, freely accessible information bank. Thace had hooked GCB Miraf onto the signal and she had absorbed all the information, but it drained her battery power quickly. 

In a series of beeps GCB Miraf warned Thace that the planet had a severe paranoia of anything different, and it was far safer to make small inconspicuous visits with a shape-shifting device. Thace was relieved, his diplomacy skills were not perfect and he did not want to be the first contact for this fascinating little planet. 

GCB Miraf printed off a plan for him, which involved landing in a specific set of coordinates, following a map and sitting in a crowded market for immersion before returning to the ship to avoid detection. It was basic but it would be best until Thace figured out how to blend in with their society. 

GCB Miraf gave one final happy beep and plugged herself into her charging booth, effectively shutting down unless Thace awakened her for an emergency. 

Despite Thace’s worry of someone attempting to talk to him or interact, he was left alone and he was barely spared a second glance. After one brief taste of human culture, Thace wanted more and was determined to visit again. But he was running behind GCB Miraf’s schedule so he sprinted back to his ship and exited the atmosphere before he could be detected. 

It was an hour later of Thace trying to understand humanity’s obsession with small furry creatures, that GCB Miraf burst into the pilot control centre beeping frantically. 

“What, is it?” Thace sighed. “I followed your schedule perfectly, unless you made a mistake we should be hidden.”   
GCB Miraf just beeped more aggressively and snapped one of her levers at the door.   
“Last time you did this, you just wanted to show me a piece of space pollution floating through the air.” Thace growled and returned his attention to the earth information.   
GCB Miraf let out a screech.   
“Okay I’m coming, calm down.” Thace raised an eyebrow. “This better be good.” 

This turned out to be a tiny human swaddled in a mess of pink polyester and white tulle, staring out the ship window into the abyss of space with awe. The little human glanced at the two, before dismissing them as irrelevant in contrast to space. 

“GCB Miraf… care to explain how the quiznak a tiny human got on board?” Thace snarled.   
GCB Miraf beeped guiltily and backed away.


	2. A Fairtytale Day

There were two things Kacey hated, the cold and princess dresses. 

Everything else was a minor inconvenience; weird adults asking where she came from, the days she had no clean clothes and had to ‘borrow’ off her foster siblings and when the fat mutt in her home snapped at her. They were little things that had always been constant and Kacey had learnt to live with them. 

But the limb-freezing cold of Minnesota was foreign to Kacey, and she almost wished to be back in the heat of Texas, despite the mean foster father who had thrown beer at them. 

The princess dresses were also strange to Kacey, everything she had previously owned were hand me downs, and she preferred long pants and T-shirts that protected her pale skin from burning or scratches. 

When Kacey had brought her half-filled duffel bag of clothes to Joan’s house, she had taken one look and declared them ‘unfit for a little girl’ and took her shopping. At first, Kacey had been delighted and pointed out comfortable shirts and pants, but Joan had insisted on skirts and thin shirts with straps and the awful Princess Aurora dress. 

Suspiciously more and more of Kacey’s old clothing disappeared in the wash and Kacey found herself wearing Joan’s choice in clothing whether she wanted to or not. 

Joan wasn’t a bad person, just pushy with what she believed was right. 

One of the older girls named Ellie had called Joan a ‘hypocrite’. Kacey didn’t know what it meant, but she suspected it had to do with an argument a few days earlier where Joan had gotten angry at Ellie for lighting little sticks on fire, and Ellie had shouted back about some drink Joan had every few hours. 

As punishment for the argument Ellie had to chaperon all the younger children to the park on Saturday afternoon. Usually a different girl called Analise took them, and she would rush around helping Danny on the monkey bars, Eric making mud pies, Kim on the swings… and so many other children with other activities that Kacey was always amazed that Analise had the energy to come and admire her drawings in the dirt of the playground. 

But Ellie just flopped down on a swing and pulled out a stick and a lighter, and stared off into the horizon. The change was upsetting to the rest of the children too, and the play was half-hearted or mean-spirited. 

Kacey couldn’t help her anger that flickered into existence like the little flame from the lighter. She was cold, she was wearing an awful dress and no one was going to look at her drawings! Kacey had even drawn Ellie with a big smiley face in the hope that she would mirror it! Scuffing the drawings out with her foot Kacey decided vengeance was the only path. 

Vengeance was difficult when you were small and your sneakers didn’t fit properly, but Kacey had learnt that if you broke rules properly you didn’t get in trouble, the person in charge of you did. So as soon as no one was looking at her, Kacey sprinted into the woods. 

Kacey had always been curious about the woods, apparently they led into a national park and went on for miles and further than the eyes could see. One of the movies Joan insisted she watch was about a girl called Snow White who ran into the woods, and Kacey couldn’t help but feel that adventure was awaiting her just like the singing princess. But Analise had taken one glance at the curiosity in Kacey’s eyes and banned her from ever entering the woods, claiming they were dangerous and should be avoided. 

But as Kacey was learning, the woods weren’t so much as dangerous as cold and boring. 

The only interesting thing was a path of toadstools that led Kacey deeper into the woods. But as she followed them she had nearly fallen when she scaled the rocks and boulders that blocked the path. Now that a significant amount of time had passed, and the woods were getting progressively colder, Kacey decided that it was time to go back. 

Kacey couldn’t help but feel smug as she started to return, she had been smart like Hansel and Gretal and used toadstools to mark her path back. But this smugness died away very quickly when Kacey realised her foolishness. 

Some things were definitely easier going down than going up. And this particular thing was a rock in the middle of the path with a mossy top that Kacey had slid down, but now the overhang was too high for Kacey to reach and pull herself up, and the overhang was too far away from the rest of the rock so she couldn’t brace her feet against anything. 

Even with the instinctive certainty that she was trapped, Kacey attempted to scale the rocks anyway. But all she achieved was a scratched elbow, a tear in her dress and a sharp pain in her ankle whenever she put pressure on it. 

“Okay.” Kacey whispered. “I just need to find a way around.” 

There was a path leading away from the left of the boulder, whilst the right was tightly packed shrubbery. Kacey had a gut feeling the left path led deeper into the woods, but it was a path in the least. 

So with tears threatening to spill over her eyes, and pain radiating up her leg with every hobble, Kacey weaved her way deeper into the woods. 

It was almost pitch black when Kacey found something. 

It was some sort of funny, silver house, with the doorway a couple of feet off the ground. But it was a house! As Kacey searched for a doorbell, she couldn’t help but finally understand why children always approached the witch’s huts in fairy tales. There was a desperation that wiggled into your heart, and a certainty that staying outside warranted death but there was a chance for survival in the safety of others. 

So when Kacey finally pressed something and a staircase descended, she scrambled into the warm light of the silver house, if only to shut the darkness away. It seemed the house had the same idea, as the stairs retracted and the door slid closed. 

“Hello?” Kacey called, and the house made no response.  
Frowning Kacey set off to try and find someone, starting at the door on her right. The door led to what looked like a library, weird texts lined the walls and strange TV’s were mounted on each shelf. But it was empty. 

The next room was bigger, but it was a giant hall of empty space with a few locked boxes in the corner. She tried opening them to check if anyone was inside, but it was too tightly sealed to check. 

The adjacent room was a bathroom, which confirmed Kacey’s suspicions that it was a house, but thankfully no one was inside. 

The following rooms were a kitchen, a locked room, a bedroom, a second bedroom and another locked room. But even when Kacey pressed her ear to the door and waited, there was no noise. It was unsettling to be alone in a house that didn’t belong to you, but when Kacey thought of going back outside her stomach lurched, so eventually Kacey ended up in the second bedroom. 

When Kacey curled up underneath the covers and began drifting off to sleep, she couldn’t help but giggle at how much of her day had been like a fairy tale. From Snow white to Hansel and Gretal and now to Goldilocks. She could only hope that the residents of the strange, silver house weren’t easily offended bears. 

 

When Kacey next awoke, she knew she had slept too long. The house was humming slightly differently and the pain in her ankle had become a dull throb. But Kacey was determined not to quite have a breakdown yet, so she smoothed down her dirty princess dress, made the bed and exited the bedroom to seek out the owner of the house. 

Then in a split second, Kacey’s life changed forever. With a quick glance to the left Kacey originally dismissed the darkness in the window as night, but a second more careful look revealed millions of pinpricks of light and a tiny blue planet rotating beneath the house. 

Kacey had seen the picture before, and had been forced to memorise all the continents, so Kacey definitely recognised Earth. Kacey couldn’t tear her eyes away, transfixed by the satellites that surrounded it, and the sudden realisation how small she was. 

At some point someone stood next to her, but she was too distracted by the view to properly respond. All of a sudden the view disappeared, and was replaced with a boring metal wall. Kacey hissed and hit the wall angrily, as if it would make the view reappear, but all it did was make the strange person cough loudly. 

“What?!” Kacey snarled, turning to face the person. 

The person wasn’t really… a person. They were tall and had two arms and two legs, but they were purple and furry and had bright yellow eyes. 

“Little one, how did you get onto my ship?” They asked. 

Somehow hearing them speak snapped Kacey out of all her anger and confusion, only to be placed with stone-cold fear. Kacey stumbled backwards and whimpered, as her ankle throbbed and prevented her from running. 

“Are you hurt little one?” A little furrow formed between his eyebrows, and his mouth twisted down. Before Kacey could scramble away he picked her up, not quite trapping her but Kacey wasn’t eager to drop back on her sore ankle. 

He turned to a robot almost as big as Kacey by his side, arguing with it in a foreign tongue. The fact that he debated with a robot that just beeped at him reminded Kacey of the funny Star Wars films she watched once, and she relaxed ever so slightly. 

As the robot continued to beep angrily at him, Kacey’s eyes were drawn to two twitching ears on top his head. She couldn't help but giggle at the little twitches, and reached out a hand to touch them. He flinched away before she could touch and his grip tightened ever so slightly, when he turned to her his expression was in deeper furrow than before and his teeth were slightly bared. 

And that was the breaking point for Kacey. 

She had been lost, cold, hurt and scared, and in the middle of space whilst being held by a strange purple being, she burst into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly this has been sitting on my desktop for a few days but every time I edited it, it sounded a bit clunky and strange. It's still not perfect but its better than it was before :)


	3. Not all shoes are universal

It was crying. 

When Thace dodged the weak swipe from the tiny human, it had suddenly slumped in his outstretched hands and began to wail. 

“GCB Miraf! What do I do?” Thace yelled holding it as far away as possibly from his face. 

GCB Miraf circled Thace’s legs in a panic, fans whirling as they frantically downloaded information and analysed it into a comprehensible answer. 

“What do you mean comfort it?” Thace frowned and listened to the ridiculous instructions GCB Miraf gave him. 

“But… but why?” Thace was confused, he was completely foreign to the child personally and as a species, and any Galra kit would only panic more if they were unnecessarily handled by a stranger. 

For a second Thace was hopeful that he wouldn’t have to let the dirty child near his fur when it’s sobs started to plateau, but instead it took in a deep breath and began to scream. 

“Oh quiznak!” Thace hissed and held the child against his shoulder, patting its upper back just like GCB Miraf said. 

“Higher? Alright.” Apparently he wasn’t comforting the human properly, and shifted his hand to pat between its shoulder blades instead. 

“There. There.” Thace tried not to cringe as he robotically said the words GCB Miraf insisted on. 

By some miracle, it seemed to be working. Exhaustion was taking over the human, and its sobs dissolved into hiccups and its thrashing stilled against Thace’s hold. 

Despite the lively population of the colony, Thace had always been too busy running the store to help look after children, and serving the military degraded his socialisation skills rather than teach him proper childcare. As well, human children seemed far different Galra kits. Before it had seemed a little cute, with big glittering eyes, and an untamed mess of fur on the top of its head, but now with its crying and sniffling Thace had the instinctual urge to throw it as far away as possible. 

With the human child melting into a puddle of misery, Thace frantically thought of what would make it happy. Weapons were clearly out of the question, he had no idea if it could eat any of the food he had stored and the texts in the library revolved around ship care and survival. 

So Thace backtracked to when he had last seen it happy, and reopened the viewing port on the side of the ship. The child had tensed when he moved, but it hadn’t started screaming again so Thace counted it as a win. 

“Come, look at the stars again.” Thace coaxed, only to be met with the child shying away from his voice and gripping his fur. 

In a pretence of patience Thace stood there, letting the child shift uncomfortably in his arms and probably contaminate him with humans excrements and bacteria.   
Realistically Thace had no idea what else to do and GCB Miraf hadn’t beeped in a couple of minutes. 

Eventually the child relented and glanced towards the window, and was immediately enchanted by the view again, reaching one tiny hand out to press against the glass. 

It was almost an hour later that Thace felt brave enough to speak again. By this time the child had turned into a dead weight and sagged into his chest, seemingly relaxed in his presence. 

“Little one, is your ankle still hurt?” Thace questioned deliberately keeping his eyes on the viewing port. 

The child murmured something into his fur, and not the fur anywhere near his ears so Thace had to awkwardly attempt to ask again. 

“I said my name is Kacey!” The child shouted angrily before ducking their head down as if expecting retribution. 

“Alright.” Thace sighed. “Is your ankle still hurt, Kacey?” 

“… Maybe.” Kacey admitted and looked at him hopefully. 

At this point Thace desperately looked for GCB Miraf for advice, but the little robot had disappeared. 

“Do you want me to fix it?” Thace asked and to his disappointment Kacey nodded eagerly. 

Thace brought Kacey into the bathroom and began to search for first aid supplies, and hoped that medicine he had stored wouldn’t kill it. 

“Your house is funny.” Kacey declared causing Thace to hit his head on the shelf he was ducked under. 

“It’s actually a ship.” Thace corrected rubbing his head as Kacey giggled. 

“No.” Kacey frowned. “There’s no… towel things.” 

“Towel things?” 

The question upset Kacey, and she pointedly crossed her arms and stared at the wall. 

“You know what I mean!” 

“I’m afraid I don’t. That is in no means a reflection of your knowledge!” Thace hurried to reassure the petulant child. “This translator doesn't always work properly, sometimes I can’t understand all the words.” 

“I can't understand all the words sometimes either!” Kacey looked delighted momentarily, before her expression darkened. 

“The other kids say its cause of my Mama.” 

“Your mother?” Thace questioned and started to carefully pull her shoe off. 

“I don’t remember her, she died when I was really little.” Kacey rolled her eyes and pulled at the strings on her shoe, and it suddenly slid off more easily. 

“But they said she spoke to me in different words and that's why I don’t get all the words now.” 

“I’m sorry.” Thace said absently as he stared at the appendage. 

It seemed a little bulbous around one joint, but to Thace that could be perfectly normal. Copying Kacey’s actions from earlier he pulled the other shoe off and compared the two appendages. 

One was definitely bigger than the other, but Thace still didn’t know if that was natural or not. 

“Are your feet meant to be symmetrical?” Thace asked. 

It took a bit of pointing and gesturing but Kacey eventually answered that, no it wasn’t meant to be swollen. 

Years later Thace would vehemently deny it, but before GCB Miraf entered the room and explained how to properly strap a sprained ankle, Thace was mentally preparing himself to perform an amputation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The 'towel things' are sails, Kacey is trying their best.   
> 2\. The other words that Kacey's mother spoke to them in was Korean, and some of the kids are really mean (racist) when Kacey mixes up words. 
> 
> I'm really sorry this has been awhile since I last updated!!! I decided to finish my other story first. I'm also in my last year of highschool and I'm doing the IB which means I have the equivalent of a major work for every subject and I'm usually to exhausted to write. 
> 
> Having said that writing is pretty therapeutic to me so I'll continue updating this every so often :) 
> 
> As always PLEASE point out any typos/really strangely worded sentences because they tend to slip past me

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is an idea that's been floating around in my head for a long time, and I decided to reward myself on my birthday by finally getting it out. The updates are probably going to be sporadic since I"m focusing on my schoolwork and finishing INFAK first.
> 
> Edit - I reread this in the morning and dear god there were so many typos, please tell me if I've missed any in my quick edit today.


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